


The Remnant

by Triddlegrl



Series: Gata Verse [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Cat/Human Hybrids, F/F, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Other, The Avengers all had kids, This is how they saved the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triddlegrl/pseuds/Triddlegrl
Summary: In the year 2032 Tony Stark and all of Pride Avengers were killed in an incursion that destroyed their entire universe. It was always the plan to go down fighting. Even if Tony and his mates had disagreed on the line between heroism and villainy, they could all agree on the necessity of saving their children.Nyota Stark is seventeen and she's Queen of all that's left of Pride Avengers. She's not ready.In 2014 Tony Stark is only just beginning to build his pride. He has no idea what the future holds. He's not ready either.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a direct companion to "I'll never Wear Your Broken Crown". 
> 
> *BEWARE OF SPOILERS*
> 
> When I initially had the idea to play around with the future in that story's plot I didn't plan on showing the kiddies point of view. Tony's interactions with Nyota and her crew were going to be mysterious and the truth about who they really were only revealed once the plot had resolved itself at the end of the story.
> 
> But, honestly I'm itching to write the kids and there's a lot of worry floating around about how the story is going to resolve and whose going to get their heart broken. So I thought doing it this way might help (and would be fun to boot). 
> 
> So lets talk about how to read this story. I'm going to be publishing it in tandem with future chapters of the main story line. Both plots are meant to be happening simultaneously, and one gives greater insight into the other, but you absolutely won't need to read this to be able to follow along with the main fic. 
> 
> That said, ****WARNING**** , If you read this story you're going to get some spoilers. Nyota and the other children are all from the future and try as I might to keep the spoilers down to a minimum, some details just can't be neatly avoided. 
> 
> So if you want a few spoilers (aka a little hope to hold onto) a chance to meet the kiddies and a greater insight into what the hell is going on as everything goes to shit in the main fic, this is a great option for you. If you absolutely want to know nothing about what's coming, then stop now and we'll see you next week with the next chapter of I'll Never Wear Your Broken Crown.
> 
> *Also, see the note at the end for a list of Characters. Becuase throwing a dozen OC's at you is probably confusing. Mind those spoilers.

Slowly, too slowly, the ship climbed into the sky, rising above the city into a blood red morning as the earth heaved and crumbled below them. Buildings were toppling around them like poorly stacked towers of blocks and the ARK tried desperately to weave around the falling debris.

“Go back!” Nyota shouted as she tried to reach the pilots chair. She was caught and held back by her cousin Riri and her younger brother T’Cael. She hissed at them, swiping her claws across Riri’s cheek. The younger girl yowled and bared her teeth but didn’t let go. T’Cael squeezed her waist like he meant to squeeze the very air out of her. It’s the desperate fear on her brother’s face that finally makes her go limp. She won’t hurt him. Not anymore than he’s already been hurt.

“Jaime go back! We have to go back for them,” she pleaded instead with the young man in the pilot’s chair. He was the oldest of them all and the unofficial leader, but he’s white faced as he steers their vessel above the city of New York, and there’s something childlike about the way his eyes flick toward the console as that voice, identical to her papa’s and yet not enough, fills the flight deck.

“No. You know what you must do. I’m sor-”

The connection abruptly cut off as the city of New York crumbled and cracked into dust, swallowed by a roiling plume of fire that rushed towards their small vessel. If they don’t leave now they will die just as surely as everyone below them already has.

“Amory, the portal!” Riri screams, and their cousin Amory’s fingers fly over the controls of the teleportation device that they and the T’Challa of this earth have been working to repair. If it works the way it should, a portal between here and somewhere else should open up just long enough for the ARK to escape the destruction of this earth. If it doesn’t, then they die.

Nyota Stark has never been frightened of much. Even after the destruction of their entire universe, she’d been the one to rally the others together, to boost morale and insist on finding a way to survive the incursions.

But now she wanted more than that. She wanted her family back.

She tugged out of Riri’s grasp, moving across the flight deck even before she’s finished doing the calculations, remembering the man who was her papa but wasn’t explaining to them about how time and space aren’t linear, and how everything exists at once within multiple dimensions.  

Amory grunted as she pushed him aside, her fingers flying over the controls as she adjusted the machine. In the back of her mind she knows she doesn’t have enough time. Her fingers can’t type fast enough.

“JOCASTA! Override the administrative settings and search for designation 20999” she shouted, even as Riri and Amory demanded to know what the hell she was doing. She doesn’t answer (she barely knows).

“Miss Stark that designation no longer exists,” the ships A.I. reminded her, but the lights on the device flicker on and the console hums beneath her hands as data begins to stream down the screen in front of her. She grinned with elation.

“Atta girl Jo! Everything in existence is happening right now! You’re not going to find it the usual way. Look above, below, behind, whatever you have to do baby girl!”

“Yes Miss Stark.”

The ARK rattles and shakes as that plume of fire rushes toward them. Brilliant light stings at their eyes. And then it happens.

“Designation found.”

 It’s too late she thinks as she backs away from the machine, that excruciating light assaulting her eyes, and the overwhelming heat singing at her skin.  She stumbled away from the machine and reached desperately for T’Cael, pulling him close in a tight hug.

She wondered where Teddy was but knew she’d never be able to find him now. She can feel the way T’Cael is trembling and wonders if they’ll feel it when that fireball consumes them.

She’s grateful when she feels RiRi’s arms slide around them but the light is so bright by then, and the roar in her ears so loud, that all she can do is cling to her small family and keep her eyes tightly shut.

She doesn’t see the portal open.

-*-

 

It is dark and quiet on the flight deck. Nyota sits alone in the pilot’s chair, the ARK’s eleven other occupants catching what rest they can since they’d successfully tunneled out of Earth designate 1204 after the Builders had detonated it. Whether or not the device had actually done as she’d hoped and brought them back through space and time to their home universe before the incursion destroyed it, had yet to be determined. 

The others had flipped when she’d told them. At first they’d been mad that she’d risked their lives the way she had but once the fact that they were all alive had really had a chance to settle, the thought of going home and rescuing their parents was too big for any of them to ignore for long.

It wouldn’t take Amory long to run his tests and determine just where and when in the multiverse JOCASTA had dumped them. They would need some sort of plan in place before they were ready to make a trip down to the surface, but there would be time enough to think about making contact in the morning.

Currently the ARK was flying over the Atlantic Ocean on what was definitely a planet earth and as far as Nyota was concerned, morning couldn’t come soon enough.

Nyota yawned and shivered. She tucked her bushy black tail in closer to her body as she curled up tighter in the pilot’s seat for warmth.

“Is it too cold Miss Stark?” JOCASTA asked with a familiar note of concern.  JOCASTA, not unlike her predecessor FRIDAY, had always looked out for Nyota and the other kits.

“I’m fine Jo. I think it’s me” she answered the A.I. with a small sigh. Space was cold. She and the others had spent more time on the ARK the last two years than they had anywhere else. The cold must have seeped into her bones. She was beginning to forget what it was like to feel the sun on her skin.

Uncle Steve would have hated it, she thought with a fleeting smirk. But it was too painful to think about her aunts and uncles, and the family she might never see again, except for in pale imitation.

JOCASTA cranked the heat up regardless and Nyota rolled her eyes. But a minute or two later when the added warmth had managed to penetrate through her flight suit she uncurled her body and propped her feet up on the dash.

“Your dirty feet are on my console again. If your papa were here he’d tell you to sit like a lady.” JOCASTA scolded and Nyota felt the first stirrings of amusement she’d felt in hours. It still hurt to think of Papa, but Jo was totally right. He would have insisted that was no way for a princess to sit and that she was getting more and more like dad. She could almost hear him now, as if he were still right beside her.

_“And I love you for it, more and more every day.”_

Swallowing back the threat of tears Nyota Stark rolled her shoulders and shook off the dark clouds casting a maudlin shadow over her mood. The feel of her curls brushing against her cheeks made her grimace.  With the sudden appearance of the Builders and the threat to that other earth, they’d been working non-stop on the portal device. She hadn’t had a proper wash day in way too long and it was starting to show. Scowling, she reached up to grasp a flyaway coil, tugging on it dispassionately and wrinkling her nose at the dry feel of it between her fingers before she let it spring loose. 

“Well I don’t exactly look like a lady right now either Jo,” she grumbled, her ears twitching toward the sound of the doors sliding open behind her. She twisted in the pilot’s chair to watch as Jamie appeared on the flight deck, his brown hair still mussed from sleep but his blue eyes keen as they landed on her. Jaime was an even bigger mother hen than JOCASTA and he thought just because he was the oldest at twenty that it was his job to take care of everybody. Especially her. Jamie had been trying to boss her around since the day she was born.

“You sure don’t smell like one either, Princess,” he commented with a wrinkle of his nose, whiskers twitching and Nyota made a face at him.

“Screw you Barnes. And don’t call me that.”

Two years ago Jaime would have had some quick comeback and he probably would have laughed. Today he just got tight lipped, looking way too much like uncle Steve for her comfort as he crossed his arms and stared at her like he could see into her soul.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Yep.” She lied, trying for breezy but he arched a brow at her and she knew he wasn’t buying it. Huffing she sagged her shoulders and came clean, snapping. “Fine, no I didn’t. Happy?”

“Nyota, you’ve gotta keep your strength up. If you get sick we don’t have a doctor on board.”

“Amory knows a lot more than most doctors.” Nyota pointed out. Her aunt and uncle had both been doctors (although technically Uncle Bruce hadn’t been that kind of doctor) and as a result Amory probably did know way more than Jaime was giving him credit for.

“Amory’s fifteen,” Jamie rejoined with an eye roll of his own. “And you know how sensitive he is. He’s got enough pressure on him already.”

“What because he’s a fel?” Nyota growled, bristling at the implication that Amory, even though he was naturally shy and quiet, wasn’t just as capable as any of the others. “He did awesome helping us with the portal device and before you forget, it was him who got the machine running when I wigged out and Riri had to keep me from clobbering you.”

Jaime didn’t rise to the bait. He was a lot like his dad sometimes, but annoyingly just when she was most geared up for a fight he turned into his other father and just gave her this look like she was being the biggest brat on the planet and he wasn’t going to take any of her shit. It could be annoying as hell but she loved him anyway.

“No,” he explained slowly and poignantly in that way he knew irritated her. “Because he’s just a kid and this is hard enough on everyone as it is. We’ve got to take care of each other and that means not being a dumbass and just asking for help when you need it.”

Oh crap, he was looking at her now. All understanding and tender, and too damn knowing. Nyota hunched, her tail arching defensively as she turned her head away from him, suddenly finding it hard to meet his eyes.

“All you had to do was ask. I wouldn’t have teased you” he entreated softly and Nyota’s gaze flew back to him with an accusing glare, and his mouth curled upward in a smirk.

“Okay I would have, but not much. What’s the big deal anyway? We used to kitten pile all the time.”

“We’re not kits anymore.”

“So?” he insisted, getting stubborn now.

“You don’t remember the horrifying talk our parents gave us about our bodies changing and what happens when a tom meets a fel?”

Jaime shuddered, his orange ears flattening comically at the memory.

“Uncle Bruce made that video slide.”

Nyota couldn’t help a cackle at his nauseous expression and he smirked triumphantly at the sound. Damn it. Trust Barnes to always know how to get under her skin. Sighing she got up from the chair, but paused before she took his offered hand, biting the corner of her lip.

“You won’t tell Wilson?”

Riri was her girl, through thick and thin, but she’d never let Nyota live it down. Ever since that tiny incident when she’d bit Anna Jones after she’d bragged to everyone how Jaime had complimented her stupid new bow, Riri liked to act like trying to gnaw another little girls face off meant Nyota had some giant crush on him or something. She’d been seven okay!

She didn’t have a crush on Barnes, of all toms. That was just ew. And no. Jaime was… well Jaime. He’d always been her best friend. Hers, not Anna Jones or anyone elses, and she just didn’t like the thought of him getting all dopey about some fel someday and forgetting all about her. Was that so hard to understand?

Nyota felt another pang of misery at the thought. It sucks to get your wish sometimes. Cause now everyone in Resilience is dead and their Pride is completely gone. Poor Anna Jones is dead.

“I won’t tell if you won’t but you know Riri,” Jaime was agreeing as he slung an arm over her shoulder. “The toaster will probably have told her. I swear she talks to machines.”

It was just a dumb joke. There was no reason it should hit her as hard as it did, when there were a million and one other reminders every day, but Nyota’s breath hitched in her chest, and by the time Jaime pulled her into a hug, the sob she was desperately trying to choke down broke loose.

Damn it. She hated crying.

Jaime for his part didn’t acknowledge that she was shuddering against him like the biggest of babies, probably smelling a week past her expiration date with the world’s worst rats nest for hair. He just held her close.

~*~*~

Nyota was one of the last to stumble into the canteen four hours later. The sun had risen and the others had already cracked into the ARKS food stores. Those deemed old enough not to set the ship on fire took turns cooking for the others. It had been Kate’s turn this morning and Nyota was glad because besides herself, Kate was one of the better cooks. She could scramble an egg without burning it at the very least unlike some other people Nyota could name (Jaime).

After a long, perhaps slightly indulgent shower she’d left her small quarters, following her nose and the sinfully delicious smell of bacon to the canteen.

Kate was still dishing out food while the others gobbled it up, almost before it settled on their plates. Riri had saved her a seat at the table because she was awesome. Nyota did a quick head count as she took her seat. There were eleven, including herself.

Jaime was at the other end of the table keeping an eye on Phil. He was the baby of the bunch at eight years old, but if you called him that you’d be dealing with an epic tantrum for hours. He was also by far the most rambunctious, even more so than cousin Tommy.

The brat pack was all present and accounted for. Anya was helping Kate serve the food. Billy was sitting with her brother Teddy like usual and Billy’s twin brother Tommy was zipping around the table, snagging food off the serving dishes before they even made it around the table and generally being a pest. Anya hit him with a spatula and he finally sat down. Billy looked like he hadn’t slept and wasn’t saying much and Teddy kept shooting him these concerned glances.

Their parents had fondly coined them all the brat pack because they’d all been born within a year of each other (that and they were complete brats). Kate was the oldest at thirteen and Anya the youngest at twelve.

T’Cael and Matai were sitting together, both boys whispering furtively in a way that usually spelled trouble. They both fancied themselves inventors and had a knack for biting off more than they could chew.  

Which just left…

“Where’s Amory?” she asked, unable to stop the jolt of anxiety that went through her, already reaching out for the younger teen in her mind.

“Finishing the rest of the diagnostics. He couldn’t wait.” Riri explained, wolfing down a mouthful of eggs. Nyota only relaxed when Amory sent her a small wave of reassurance. It was still just too weird for Nyota being the center of the group. Dad had always made it look so easy. Nyota had never really wanted to be Queen. It was a terrifying amount of responsibility to carry a Pride, and Dad had promised she’d have time to grow used to the idea and that if she ever decided that she really just wasn’t cut out for it, that he wouldn’t force her.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Dad was supposed to live a very long time, and Nyota was supposed to figure everything out before the mantle of Queen ever passed down to her but it hadn’t worked out like that. Instead the whole universe had ended, and their parents had put them all on the ARK and told them to take care of each other. Now it was Nyota’s job to take care of her cousins and younger siblings and make sure they always had an anchor, whether she was fit for the job or not, because she was the only Queen. But she was only seventeen and she totally wasn’t ready for this!

Well they were going to fix things. They were going to go down there and get their parents and teleport the hell out of here before the incursion and then Nyota was going to probably scream at them for a good hour or two for lying to her. They hadn’t been fine. They hadn’t caught up. They weren’t ever coming back (unless she came and got them) because they’d stayed behind on a sinking ship like perfect idiots.

Because that’s what heroes did and they thought it was more important to be heroes than to be her parents. Well screw that. They were about to know how wrong they were.

 “Stop brooding, Lady McBroody.” Riri jostled her rudely with her shoulder and Nyota stuck her tongue out at the dark-skinned she-tom. Wilson was a pain in the ass but she’d been Nyota’s best (girl) friend for most of their lives. They looked similar enough they could have passed as sisters. Riri was actually younger than Nyota by two years but smarter than just about anybody that Nyota knew, and that was saying something because Nyota was the daughter of two geniuses. She wasn’t a slouch in the brains department either, but she’d never taken to mathematics and engineering the way her dad might have liked. Their parents used to laugh about the irony of Tony Stark getting an athlete for a daughter and Riri’s super sporty parents giving birth to an even bigger nerd than Tony.

“That’s Princess McBroody to you, foolish peasant.” Nyota teased, flicking a bit of crumbled bacon Riri’s way. The other girl dogged, her striped tail swatting at Nyota’s under the table as she made a face at her before heaving a sigh.

“So, do you really think JOCASTA did it? Do you think this is our earth?”

Silence fell over the table as if someone had called for it, all the low conversations dying out as everyone turned and looked at Nyota. As if she would know or could do something to make it real for them all. She knew that they wouldn’t actually blame her if it turned out that her crazy plan had failed and they’d been spit into some other universe entirely, but she couldn’t help but feel a twist of guilt. She’d been the one to put the hope into their heads.

“Are we going home?” Phil chirped hopefully, twisting that knife of guilt. His sandy hair was flopping as he moved his head between Nyota and his older sister. “Are we going to see mom and dad?”

Kate smiled, but it looked strained to Nyota.

“That’s the plan Philly.”

She looked toward Nyota and Riri again, because the two of them along with Amory had been the ones to help with the device.

“It should have worked right? You said the portal could take us through time as well as dimensions so… we should be home before the incursion happened?” she asked, pushing a strand of her dark hair out of her eyes. “So all we’ve got to do is go down there and get them right?”

“It’s not that easy guys. Believe it or not, ripping holes through space and time is not exactly an exact science.” Riri answered. “Even with those Avengers helping there was only an estimated fifty percent chance the machine was going to work right, but we ran out of time to improve it. It’s possible that we’re back home, but there’s no telling when exactly we arrived. We could be days before the point of incursion or centuries before we were ever born.”

“But you guys could still work on it right?” Jaime ventured into the devastated silence.

Nyota shrugged, but tried to muster a smile for everyone.

“Of course we will. We have to. The incursions are going to keep happening either way, and it’s still our best option for escaping them.”

She didn’t say what was looming in the back of her mind. They’d had the help of earth 1204’s T’Challa and some of the leading minds in Wakanda and they’d still not perfected the device. Maybe with more time they would have, but they’d run out of it, and now it was left to the twelve of them. And as Jaime had already pointed out. They were just children. She could feel Jaime staring at her from across the table. He probably knew what she was thinking.

She didn’t know about anyone else in the multiverse but she was certain their parents could have figured it out. She’d never wanted to curl into a ball and cry for mommy and daddy so badly in her life. Except, Tony had never liked to be called mother, even if it was the culturally done thing. She and Papa used to do it sometimes, just to see him get irritated and watch his fur fluff up.

She’d give a lot to see him again, even if it was just to hear him rant about gender roles and the feminization of male fels.

Soon. Soon things would be right.

Phil sniffled loudly, mewling pathetically as his head drooped and Nyota started out of her memories, wincing at the gloomy pallor that had taken over the table. Some Queen she was turning out to be. She was supposed to be lifting everybody up.

“Hey, cheer up little man.” She sent as much comfort his way as she could muster, the way she always remembered feeling from her dad. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see. We’re going to get our parents back.”

Almost as if on cue Amory came running into the canteen, his dark hair looking windswept and his fur standing on end.

“Guys! Guys! We’re home! I mean we’re not but- the broadcast, JOCASTA!” Amory panted, calling as he waved the tablet in his hand which was playing some sort of video clip.

“Take it easy Banner, you’re not making any sense,” Anya said as the older teen slid to a stop not far from her, nearly colliding into the table. But she tilted her head upward at the exact same moment that the others did as JOCASTA began projecting what looked like the same clip on a holo-screen above them.

There was some blond news reporter on television talking to some guy in a suit whose name Nyota didn’t recognize. She had no idea what it was they were supposed to be looking at.

“I ran every feasible test I could, comparing this earths signatures to what is stored in JOCASTA’S memory banks. It looks like a match but honestly there’s just not enough to be certain.” Amory tried to explain in a rush, gesturing toward the projection as he spoke. “So I tapped into their satellites and started doing some digging. They have Gata! Those other earths didn’t, and look, look what’s happening on the news!”

Nyota’s eyes swiveled back on the screen, her heart pumping with anticipation now that Amory had found evidence of Gata on the planet. There had been no Nyota Stark on Earth 1204, because Tony Stark and T’Challa had not been born without the Gata gene and they hadn’t been mated in that universe. In fact the T’Challa of that universe had been married to a mutant woman and Tony had been with Aunt Pepper. It had hurt more than she ever realized it would to be so close to her parents and yet still be so far.

But this earth was already different. Already closer to home. She knew intellectually that in all the universes out there, there was surely more than one of her, but she couldn’t help the desperate hope growing inside of her that this was the right one.

 _“You’re not worried at all that others will see a private reserve for Gata as an opportunity to poach the vulnerable residents for sale on the black market?”_ The reporter was asking the man in the suit, who the caption beneath declared was someone named Tom Huckbey, press secretary for the Governor of Massachusetts.

_“I think it’s standard protocol with any state park to expect that there are always going to be people trying to take advantage. We’re working closely with Stark Industries to make certain that the Gata who will be relocated there will be adequately protected. I think what we all want to see is the chance for those rescued from less than ideal situations, who can’t be assimilated back into society, have the chance to heal in a natural environment. A lot of studies have been done on this and they all agree that if they can’t be in a loving home, that Gata flourish best in groups. They’re going to get that on Resilience, and Massachusetts couldn’t be prouder to be a part of opening the first protected reserve of this type.”_

“He said Resilience! I heard him. Did you hear him?!” Tommy demanded, his white ears flicking back and forth rapidly as he all but leapt three feet into the air from his seat.

“Quiet!” Anya hissed, elbowing him sharply and the room fell quiet again as the clip played on, returning to the reporter.

_“Still some are not as optimistic about the success of this project. Stating that the study of Gata Prides is too new and untested. Others have expressed reservations about allowing the controversial Avengers Pride so much free rein. Under the current contract, running of the reservation would fall solely under the authority of Stark Industries and the inhabitants would fall under the same independence protocols granted to Avengers Pride members. But Stark, well documented as a feral kat, has a long history of erratic behavior and many are questioning the wisdom of the decision. We caught up with Stark –”_

Nyota gasped as the view changed to a hand-held camera on a red carpet somewhere as reporters shouted out questions, and there he was. She knew it was her dad. She just did, even if he looked different. He was younger than she’d ever seen him, and he wasn’t wearing the armguards her Papa had given him but it was him. She knew it.

He was talking into the camera and mocking the reporter’s question and there was Uncle Steve standing just behind him, looking annoyed at the woman.

Nyota’s knees shook and she sat down heavily in her chair. A moment later T’Cael and Teddy were there, standing on either side of her. She reached for their hands, gripping them both tightly.

 Teddy’s blue eyes looked almost grey with how watery they were with tears. He didn’t say anything, but T’Cael did. His lean body almost vibrating where it pressed against Nyota’s.

“Ny, is that… is that dad? Are we really home?”

“Yeah” she answered, her voice sounding strangled and she laughed. Squeezing both their hands once more. Her eyes sought Jaime’s and found him where he was holding a very pale looking Anya. “I think we are.”

The trouble was, she didn’t think they were born yet. Not by a long shot.

~*~*~

“Why can’t we just show them the video?” Anya asked with a petulant pout of her lips, flicking her red ponytail over her shoulder. “The other Avengers believed us when we showed them.”

They were all sitting around the table now, trying to figure out what to do next.

When Nyota’s father had designed the ship he’d recorded a video that was stored deep in JOCASTA’s memory files. The first time they’d landed on that alternate earth and come in contact with one of their parent’s alternate selves the A.I. had played it for them. Nyota had burst into tears hearing her dad say, “If you’re watching this, it means I’m dead.”

“Those guys weren’t our parents Anya,” Jamie reminded her. “If we change too much about the past here we risk changing the future. We could accidently make it so we were never born.”

“Alright so, we can’t just drop in on them and take them up on the ark. At least not until history plays out and we’re closer to the incursion point,” Riri theorized and Kate snorted, her dark eyebrows arching.

“It’s 2014 down there. Nyota’s not even gonna be born for another three years and the incursion won’t happen for another fifteen years after that. You want us to wait two decades?!”

“Well I don’t know, but it would be cool if you could stop screeching in my ear.” Billy grumbled with a disgruntled look, leaning away from Kate who shot him an apologetic look.

“Can’t we just open another portal closer to the future?” Matai asked, looking up at his older brother. Amory shook his head.

“We’ll need a new energy source for the transporter. We burned out the reactor.”

“In one jump?” Riri asked. She whistled low when Amory nodded.

“Even then, the device isn’t exact enough for us to pick when in the timeline we wanted to jump to.” Nyota reminded everybody. She was thinking quietly to herself, franticly trying to come up with a solution that worked and running into the same unwanted conclusion.

“So what do we do? Just give up?! Just say oh well we tried and wait around for twenty years for the universe to end again?” Tommy demanded.

Everybody looked at her. The silence was thick with misery.

“I want to go home Ny.” T’Cael said what they were all thinking, his voice small but heavy. Teddy put his arm around him.

“Home doesn’t exist yet. Landing here was a one and a billion shot guys and we got it.” Nyota swallowed the lump in her throat as she met each of their eyes. “I’ve been thinking. Our parents died because they refused to abandon this planet, even when they knew it was the end of everything. They stayed to try and find a way to save everybody, down to the last second. I don’t think they’d get on the ARK with us this time around either.”

Stupid. So stupid. So unfair. But she knew it was true. Dashing away the prick of tears Nyota continued.

“I don’t think we could save them that way even if we could get there, and even if we could we’d just be running from incursions until there wasn’t anywhere to run anymore. We could spend the rest of our lives running or we could do what we have to, to stop the incursion from ever happening altogether.”

“Stop the incursion? Girl, are you crazy?” Riri gaped at her. Which was kind of bad because to pull any of this off she really needed Riri to have her back, but Nyota really couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. T’Cael could, but then again, T’Cael had gotten super protective of her and Teddy since their parents had died.

“Nyota’s not crazy! Dad said there was a way they could be stopped! We just have to find it.” Her ten-year-old brother insisted with an intimidating glare. Unfortunately, it was ruined by the fact that he had strawberry preserves smeared over his top lip. T’Cael had never been able to eat without completely massacring his food.

“My distinguished friend with the jam mustache is right,” she teased gently, pushing her own napkin toward him. “You guys heard what the Builders said. Incursions happen when two universes collide. Earth is the collision point, so if you destroy one earth you save both universes. That’s why they detonated earth 1204.”

“You’re not suggesting we do what they did?” Jaime asked, sounding suitably appalled by the idea and Nyota quickly shook her head, narrowing her eyes at him in affront.

“No way! How could you even ask me that? Who would do something like that?!”

Jaime looked apologetic but he didn’t meet her eyes.

“What’s with boys and wanting to blow things up?” Anya grumbled and Tommy shrugged.

“It works doesn’t it? I mean yeah it sucks, maybe you lose a couple billion people on earth, but if you don’t then you lose two whole universes. You know how many people die in that scenario?”

Jaime glowered at the young tom, looking like he was going to start an epic scold and Nyota snapped her fingers, drawing their attention back.

“Guys, focus. We don’t need to blow anything up. If earth is the collision point, then all we’ve got to do is move one earth out of the way. Don’t you see? We can save the universe. We just gotta keep the earths from colliding.”

“We can’t just ‘move’ a planet!” Kate scoffed, fingers moving to form quotation marks. “What the hell are you even talking about right now?”

“Technically we wouldn’t have to.” Riri theorized, catching on to Nyota’s thoughts. Nyota beamed at her. “If we could open a portal between both earths just before the incursion point, theoretically we could time it so that one of those earths jumped to another designated location, say ahead of the collision point, thereby missing the collision altogether. It would be nearly instantaneous. The people on planet wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“Woah, even I have to admit that sounds like some gumball machine science fiction. And I can manipulate chaos magic! Am I the only one who thinks this sounds insane?” Billy asked, crossing his arms looking skeptically around the table.

“No crazier than anything else we’ve tried.” Riri shrugged.

“But, can’t Billy just open a portal to send us to the future?” Matai asked. “Wouldn’t that be simpler?”

Billy paled and Teddy glared at Matai.

“Don’t be stupid Banner, you know his magics not strong enough for that.”

“Don’t call me stupid Rogers.” Matai shot back.

Nyota stuck two fingers in her mouth and whispered sharply for quiet. When all eyes were on hers again she sighed.

 “Look guys. Billy’s powers are still developing, this isn’t on him. We all saw what it did to Aunt Wanda to teleport us out of here the first time. That’s why we built the device in the first place. If he’d had more time, I’m sure that other Tony Stark would have figured out a way to perfect it. But there wasn’t time.” She said. “Well now we have all the time in the world.”

“Ny… we’re smart, I know we are, but this is kind of above our pay grade.” Riri hedged, looking crestfallen. “I don’t know if we could get it right even with eighteen years to work on it. We’re still learning and where are we going to find someone to teach us all the stuff we still don’t know?”

That was the crux of the problem. It sucked admitting when you were in over your head, when you were out of all other options but one. But Papa had taught her never to back down, and not to be afraid. Even when you saw the end. Especially when you saw the end.

“Maybe we can’t,” Nyota admitted. “But maybe dad and the others can. We just have to plant the right seeds.”

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

“Tony, I’m sure you know that a lot of people are very concerned about this passion project of yours.”

The Morning Show’s host had one of those smooth smarmy voices that in Nyota’s experience, usually accompanied the kind of toms her parents had warned her away from and that aunt Tasha had taught her how to incapacitate without breaking a sweat.

She glanced up from her work to look at the television. Yep, the host had this perfectly jelled hair and these stupidly punchable blunt little white teeth. He kept flashing them at dad like he expected Tony to just roll over and spread his legs or something. He was trying to come off as all serious ‘big shot investigative reporter right here’, but the effect was pretty much ruined by the major case of fuck me eyes he had going on.

Nyota had heard stories growing up about the slave trade in the states. She’d been warned direly about the dangers of venturing outside of Resilience on her own and whenever the family traveled to Wakanda they did it under armed escort. She knew what life was like for Gata before her dad had founded Reliance, but hearing about it, even looking things up online, wasn’t the same as seeing it with your own eyes.

A low growl rumbled in her throat and a few seats down the table Amory turned to her with a frown, shushing her with a silent finger.

“I can’t hear.”

Nyota mouthed a silent apology and refocused on her work. Watching the news and combing the internet for footage of their parents was pretty much the highlight of everybody’s day around here. She wasn’t sure how healthy it was, especially for the younger kits, but she didn’t have the heart to force them to stop. Besides, studying the current times was important if they wanted even a slim chance of correctly guising what they had to change to save the future and what had to stay the same so that they didn’t Artie Mcfly themselves.

“…think the recent surge in feral activity is cause for public concern? First the attack on Oscorp and just two days ago the robbery at ViXon Tech. People are beginning to wonder if the Avengers are truly capable of shutting these guys down. Are you?” the host was asking.

“They’re talking about you and Jamie again” Kate announced without looking up from her tablet screen.

Nyota scowled. She stretched her back until it popped and winced at the soreness there. She was glad they didn’t have to go surface side for awhile. Having the Avengers show up at their sting at ViXon hadn’t been the most fun she’d ever had.

Dad was different than she remembered him, a little rawer, rougher around the edges, and his tech was severely outdated, but going toe to toe with him and her aunt and uncles was still no picnic. That and it was pretty much the worst thing ever to trade blows with the same people she just wanted to rip her mask off and beg to take care of her. So yeah. No more of that please and thanks.

It was a god damn mess down there. You couldn’t even walk around without a collar stating your name, your owner and basically your business for doing anything besides rolling over in somebody’s bed or playing fetch. They’d figured that out the hard way their first attempt at touching ground when someone had noticed they were without tags within twenty minutes and suddenly they were being chased by animal control.

After the hit on OSCORP had nearly gotten her and Jaime tangled up in a spider’s web, they knew they needed to find an easier way to work surface side. Cousin Peter was so much more of a pest in the past than she ever would have guessed.

So no more midnight raids, which meant they needed tags. Amory had done the research and unsurprisingly Stark Industries had the market cornered on smart non-choke collars for Gata, but ViXon didn’t have JARVIS on the lookout so they were the obvious winner.

Riri was taking care of wiping their chips and uploading them with the false identities they’d come up with while Nyota was busy at work disabling the choke and the elctro-shock functions.

The brightly colored pamphlet that had come in the box had explained that a unique code was built in for law enforcement, in the event that Masters needed help with their more “unruly” subjects.  Bastards.

“How’s it coming Stark?”

Nyota only glanced up long enough to push her hair out of her eyes and make sure Jaime could see just how annoyed she was with _everything_.

“Slow. Stupid things aren’t even all that complicated in design. The pieces are just tiny and my giant man hands aren’t helping.”

“Yeah well, your man hands saved my ass the other day so don’t trade them.” Jaime plopped into the seat opposite her with a pained grunt and Nyota bit back a satisfied smile. Taking Captain America’s shield to the ribs was never a fun experience, and Jaime had saved her ass enough times that she could give him a pass for getting caught off guard this once.

“So we may have a problem.” he announced and Nyota couldn’t resist a snicker.

“You mean the fact that we’re currently living in the ghostly past of our destroyed universe? Would we really call that a problem?”

“It’s not a ghostly past. It’s the actual past, which means our presence here could be changing things.” He reminded her with the expression she was pretty sure he’d copied tick for tick from his parents. How to deal with irreverent Starks, Super Soldier addition.

“We are changing things.” Amory piped up from down the table, eyes still glued to his screen. “Our presence alone creates a ripple in the continuity. The future we lived in still exists in some dimension, but just by being here we’ve already created an alternate future.”

“There you go. A new future lies before us.” Nyota waved her wrench expansively with a smirk. “We just need to make sure the track we’re on leads to a future where we’re born and our parents are better prepared for the incursions.”

“Easy peasy.” Tommy had looked up from the vidscreen to watch the two of them and Nyota shot him a thumbs up.

“It’s going to be harder than you think Nyota. One wrong move and we could completely fuck everything up.” Jaime had lowered his voice and leaned closer across the table, maybe in hope that the others would be too distracted by the news program to hear.

“And even if we succeed it’s not like we’re just going to wake up one day and we’ll be home again.”

“I know that.” She hissed. “But I don’t know if you’ve noticed Barnes, but we don’t have another option. There’s nothing for us to go back to and nowhere safe we can run to. The incursions will eventually catch up, destroy everything, and then it’s game over.”

How could she not know that? They could change the past and save the future for some other versions of them, but the sticky reality of it was it wouldn’t be _them_. They wouldn’t remember any of this. Their history would have been rewritten. A whole new reality born from the ashes of the old.

She just hoped for the kits sake that being rewritten didn’t hurt. Maybe it really was like Back To The Future. Maybe they’d all just start to fade gently away.

“Hey.” Jamie laid his hand over hers, stilling the angry jabs she’d been making with the wrench and she bared her teeth at him but didn’t try and bite him. She could hear him out a few moments more, but if he continued to be this annoying she wasn’t going to make any promises.

“I’m with you. One hundred percent. You know that.”

Ugh, there he went with the earnest face and the soothing scent that made her just want to curl up in a ball with him and purr the damn day away. Despite herself Nyota felt some of the fight begin to leak out of her.

“Till the end of the line?” she was happy her tone at least sounded snide, but his little smile told here he saw through her anyway.

“End of the line, Princess.”

“Don’t call me that.” She sighed. Alright, so if it wasn’t the course of action she’d chosen then something else was bugging him and that was just great. All she needed really, was more problems.

 “So what’s the big problem then?” she asked, “What have we changed that you think we weren’t supposed to?”

 “It’s 2014, right? But T’Challa just got here, and my dad is still consort.”

“So?” Nyota shrugged. “Everybody knows Steve used to be dad’s consort. We’ve all heard the, ‘everybody in the Pride has different roles but we all love each other very much’ speech a million times.”

Dad had always said there was too much potential for jealousy and rivalry to pop up if they lost focus of the fact that first and foremost they were family.

Dad could love all of them equally and likewise, Papa never let them forget that just because Nyota and T’Cael were biologically his, didn’t mean he loved Teddy any less and they were not to let their cousins in Wakanda pick on him just because he didn’t have royal blood like theirs.

The fact that Uncle Steve and dad were currently the leading couple of the Pride wasn’t something she found alarming.

“Dad didn’t step down from leading the team until the Civil War,” Teddy reminded everyone. He and Billy were curled up together to watch the news clip. Billy’s head was resting on his shoulder his eyes drooping sleepily. He’d been up late again, trying to grow his powers. He still thought it was his fault that he hadn’t been strong enough to save their parents, even when his own mother hadn’t been strong enough.

“That’s barely a year from now.” Billy pointed out, blinking his eyes open sleepily. “It’s still going to happen right?”

“If there’s no Civil War it means our parents don’t meet.” Tommy appeared at Nyota’s shoulder as if out of thin air and she jumped, scowling at him.

“Don’t run onboard the ship Thomas! I’ve told you a million times.”

“You’re not my mother.” Tommy stuck his tongue out at her.

“Yeah I know. She didn’t swat you enough,” Nyota growled, trying to scratch him but Tommy knew her too well by now and was too fast to get caught by her claws.

The telepad hummed and Riri appeared in the center of a swirl of wholly unnecessary lights and spinning molecules. Dad had borrowed the sound effects straight from Star Trek because he was a giant nerd.

“I’ve been through every inch of Osbornes files. He’s definitely working with Trask.” Riri confirmed, making her way into the canteen, holding the case full of microchips ready to be installed back into the collars. “As long as Hydra still attacks the President next month and the team stops Project Oversight we’re still on track for the war.”

“We still need to make sure the war turns out the same way.” Jaime insisted. “I’m worried we changed something fundamental enough to change the outcome of the war.”

“Dude, like what?” Tommy asked.

“Me,” he answered and Nyota blinked at him, not sure she’d heard right.

“Come again?”

“In all those stories our parents told us, do you remember what made things so hard? It wasn’t the war, it was trying to keep the government from taking me. I was the reason dad realized he couldn’t lead the team anymore.”

He was right, Nyota realized. If Steve didn’t step down as Consort there was no telling what that would change. It had been her papa and Tony who had lead the Pride to victory and declared their independence from the United States.

“But I thought they didn’t find you Jaime until after they brought Uncle Bucky back?” T’Cael asked, his brow furrowing deeply in thought.

“Yeah, Uncle Steve and mom were working with SHIELD when Steve realized Hydra was behind Project Oversight.” Anya recalled and Nyota nodded.

“That’s when Uncle Steve finally managed to bring Bucky back. It sounds like we’re fine.”

But Jaime was shaking his head and a sense of dread was crawling up Nyota’s spine.

“That’s my whole point. Dad said he and Aunt Natasha had been working in Washington for six months before the mess with Project Oversight. That’s supposed to happen in June. It’s already February and they’re not in Washington.”

 “Because they’re hunting us here.” Nyota realized, the color draining from her face.

“What happens if uncle Steve’s not in Washington when Hydra launches Project Oversight?” Kate asked quietly.

“Well none of us are born for one thing.” Nyota snapped, fear making it hard for her to think. She had to calm down for everybody’s sake, even though her brain seemed stuck on an endless loop of _shit shit shit_.

 “A lot of innocent people die.” Jaime answered in a far calmer tone, his hand coming to rest over hers again. “Including Uncle Tony, which means the end of the Pride.”

“Well damn. Okay, easy fix.” Riri let out a long breath. “The SHIELD team is hunting us right? So we just got to lead them to Washington and make sure Steve’s in the right place at the wrong time. Just like before.”

“But we need to be here. I need to get into the tower if I’m going to override JARVIS and successfully plant the package. I can only do that from dad’s lab.” Nyota reminded her. “Besides, shouldn’t we stick close to Tony and the others in case something goes wrong? If they launch those missiles before Steve can stop them this time we might be able to save them.”

“It sounds like we need to split up.” Teddy said in a decisive sort of way, his shoulders straightening.

“No.” T’Cael snapped, adamantly shaking his head. “Our parents told us to stick together.”

“Our parents are dead.” Tommy snapped back. “And they’re going to be dead much sooner and completely blink us out of existence if we don’t do something.”

“Tommy’s right.” Billy leaped to his twin’s defense. “We’re not babies. We’ve all been trained same as you and Jamie. We’re as much Avengers as you are.”

“There’s a big difference between one of Tony’s practice simulations and the real thing Billy, and your mother’s still a Hydra agent. Could you really hurt her if it came down to it?” Jaime reminded him harshly and Nyota felt the words land in Billy’s chest like a blow but the younger teen just glared back stubbornly.

“All the more reason I should be there. Mom’s powers are too strong. You can’t take her by yourself.”

“If Billy’s going then I’m going.” Teddy declared and T’Cael screwed up his face and straight up yowled.

“Nobody’s going anywhere! This is crazy! Ny, tell them!”

Matias stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply for quiet.

“Nyota’s the Queen.” He reminded them all in a small voice, looking to her with hope. “She’s the one who decides.”

Wasn’t she the lucky one? Nyota thought bitterly but she shook the pitiful thoughts away when Jaime squeezed her hand encouragingly and she felt them all waiting for her.

“It doesn’t look like we have much choice. It’ll be okay T’Cael. We’ll be operating in the background, just like we do here. “She attempted to sooth her younger brother. “Riri and I need to be here, working with JOCASTA on planting the package. Jaime, you’re the only one strong enough to duke it out with Steve and Bucky if things go south, so you should go to Washington with Amory, Billy an –”

“And me!” Teddy interjected stubbornly and Nyota rolled her eyes.

“And Teddy.”

“Why does Teddy get to go!” Kate snapped. “What about me and Tommy?”

“Teddy has the serum. You and Tommy don’t.” Jaime reminded them but the two younger kits weren’t about to take that lying down.   

“So!” Tommy whined. “Nobody’s a better shot than Kate and I’m so fast, hell I could take out those gunships all by myself. We don’t even need Uncle Steve.”

“Look, I know you guys want to see your parents. But you can’t outrun bullets if you don’t see them coming Tommy and I need you and Kate here.” Nyota sighed, running a hand tiredly through her thick hair.

“You need us to babysit you mean.” Kate muttered darkly but she Nyota could feel that she was resigned to it and that was the best she could hope for.

“Yes! I’ll be at the tower and somebody needs to take care of the others. You’ll be my eyes on the inside. The shelter is the safest place to be right now, but don’t worry. From all the stories dad told us, you’ll see plenty of action before this is over,” Nyota promised with a grim smile.

They all would.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota and her crew repair their ship after tangling with the Avengers. Now that they have what they were after and can forge identities for themselves, there is only one thing left to do - prepare to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to remind you that this series SPOILS a major plot element in I'll Never Wear Your Broken Crown, so if you somehow missed that up till now, abort. Abort!

_I'm bulletproof nothing to lose_  
Fire away, fire away  
Ricochet, you take your aim  
Fire away, fire away.

“Louder JO.” Nyota commanded the AI and a moment later  JOCASTA had the halls of the ARK thrumming with the sounds of electric pop, base, and the melodic crooning of Sia circa 2013. Was it weird being in a decade when one of her favorite artists had yet to burst onto the scene as the out and proud bad ass Nyota knew her to be, still hiding her features behind an oversized wig and the costume d’jour? Abso-fucking-lutely, but no weirder than anything else about finding herself in a decade before she was even born, and having to infiltrate her father’s life in order to save it.

Dad wasn’t half the distracted genius that he pretended to be. He’d notice any cracks in her cover, any oddities or stupid missteps like a young woman not up to date on the latest pop trends, or unfamiliar with the fact that unless she was covered up, a fel couldn’t get on stage and sing about anything of substance. People liked their kittens bubble gum bright, covered in body glitter, doing their best imitation of morons stuck in perpetual infancy – with an extra flimsy miniskirt on the side, please and thanks (because dirty mother fuckers). 

So yeah, lots to do. A crash course in 2013 social norms, secret identities to establish, and a virus to code that would be strong enough to get past the most advanced AI ever created. A girl could have a break down with all the stress, but Nyota had learned from the best. When the work gets tough, turn up the volume and don’t come up for air until the shit gets done.

_You shoot me down, but I won’t fall_

_I am Titanium_

"Jadakiss Bond would be a kickass name."  T’Cael suggested, popping his head out of the open maintenance panel to be sure that Nyota and the others who were working in the lab heard him over the music.

"Nobody’s gonna believe that’s a real name." Anya scoffed from where she sat, perched upon the edge of the open tool box under the panel. She was passing up tools whenever Riri (who was helping fix the broken circuits along with T’Cael) called for them. 

They’d taken a bad hit during their mission to VIXON. The ark wasn’t as big as the hellicarrier dad had once built for SHIELD. There was just enough space for a few sleeping quarters, a canteen and some lab space. 

They'd had to leave the city in order to find a place to land their ship where they wouldn't be noticed, and Jaime had come up with the idea of going to the cabin. It was a good idea. It was all Stark land up in those woods, and Nyota remembered it well from her visits there as a child, before the incursions and the President of the United States had fallen out with her dad because Tony had been unwilling to sell him a weapon. The ultimate weapon: the planet destroyer.

Nyota shivered, thinking about the device that had nearly torn apart her family - before they'd gone and died on her anyway.

Maybe if dad had spent less time arguing with Steve about what was and wasn't morally acceptable at the end of the world, maybe he'd have thought up a better way.

A device that could destroy an entire planet with the push of a button. No colliding earths meant no destroyed universes.  Billions of lives lost in an instant and trillions saved. Tony had built it, because of course he had, and uncle Steve…

Uncle Steve had been against it, which meant Uncle Bucky had also been against it. She knew in the back of her mind that she wasn’t being completely fair to her uncles, that you could love someone and still find yourself standing on opposite sides of a no win scenario; but considering what those lines had cost her and her Pride, Nyota didn’t care to be fair anymore.

Screw that! Her parents, her aunts and uncles, they should have known better. All those lectures about family, about Pride, only when it had mattered they’d chosen sides just like they’d always warned her not to do. It had been so confusing watching her tight little family come apart, divisions forming left and right where there had never been division where she could see it before. The arguments. The fights they all thought they were doing such a good job hiding from her and her cousins. Idiots.

At least her Papa had stood behind dad. That was the one constant that had never changed. Nyota didn’t know how she would have kept going if that had crumbled with the rest of her world. He'd said the solution wasn't what he'd ever have wanted, but he’d agreed that there wasn't another way that he could see. 

Her family had fought (and did nothing but fight) near the end, split down the middle, tensions worsening and worsening while cooler heads desperately tried to keep the Pride together. Pride means family and you don’t turn your back on family no matter what comes between you. Her dad taught her that.

Too bad he’d only remembered it there at the end, when it was too late to do anything but die for a lost cause and spit their kits out into the cosmos and hope for the best.

 _"You okay down there Princess? I can feel you shaking."_  Nyota blinked back the unexpected prick of tears as Jaime's voice filled her head. He was currently stomping around on the outside of the hull, trying to patch up the hole while Matai and T'Cael were helping mend the broken wires and circuitry, closely monitored by Riri.

 _“I’m holding myself back from strangling you Barnes.”_ She shot back, silently reprimanding herself for her slip and refocusing on her work. She was not some sniffling kitten who needed a tom's shoulder to lean on every time she felt a little sad. She had shit to do!

Along with assimilating herself with this unfamiliar decade, she was creating Jaime a new shield. He'd lost his other one in the fight at Vixon, and he'd been pouting about it ever since. Nobody dared tease him about it either. Tony and her aunt Shuri had made him that shield. Jamie had trained with it ever since he was thirteen years old. Losing it was like losing a piece of himself, and they'd already lost too much already.

“Why not Princess?” Riri chimed in, eureka in her tone. “It’s right on trend with popular pet names in this decade and you certainly won’t forget to respond to it.”

Nyota swallowed, gulping down a breath of cool air but it did nothing to relieve the burning in her gut. Riri had a good point. Even so, Nyota hated the idea but since she couldn’t explain to any of them why she hated it without admitting how weak she was, she just shrugged.

“Whatever we have to do. It’s just a name.”

“No it’s not.” Amory spoke up from his work station. While Nyota was focused on the complicated process of weapons restock, he was surrounded by blue holo-screens, burrowing deep into several private servers (including government ones) continuing the delicate process of weaving identities for them. But he'd looked up from his work his gentle brown eyes meeting hers with sympathy, and even worse, understanding.

“I know what that name means to you, and we don’t have to. Use it I mean, really, the important thing is the paper trail. The rest of us can get by with some surface work but if Uncle Tony goes digging, and you know he will, your cover needs to be as tight as we can make it.”

The trouble with humans and Earth before their parents had founded Resilience, was that all legal Gata residents were registered with the government and collared.  Nyota and her cousins had already taken care of the getting the collars part, no thanks to the Avengers who had shown up and made things twice as hard as they had to be.

Now there was the tiny matter of hacking the information chips within their collars and into the state registry to plant their identities. Little stuff like that.

Technically Anna and the others didn't need them since they'd be at the safehouse "abandoned" but Nyota wanted them to be traceable if something were to go wrong. T'Cael had come up with the idea of turning their collars into communicators and Nyota could have kissed him. Sometimes it paid to have a kid brother who was a genius.

Because it would have driven her crazy not to hear their voices again. It made her gut clench thinking of sending Jaime and the others off. Not knowing when or if they’d see each other again. That was the real reason why she was building weapons.

They'd never separated before. Not really. She couldn’t stop Jamie and the others going to Washington. That needed to happen or they risked completely screwing up the time line. And even if the younger kits were just going to be a few hours away from her, Nyota knew the truth. She was abandoning them just like their parents had. Sending them off to some approximation of safety while she went on what amounted to a suicide mission. None of them were coming back from this. Not really. She still woke up at night sometimes, afraid, wondering if it would hurt when they stopped existing. She just hoped the younger kits didn't figure it out before it happend.

She’d led them here. This was their best chance, their only chance of getting their parents back and changing the future for the better. Whether she was right or wrong about that her cousins were going to follow her because they were Pride, and she was Queen.  Whether she wanted to be or not.

_Nyota runs to him. Mad and upset because she’s been told a million times that it’s not okay to bite people just because she’s mad, and this time she broke the skin. Jaime deserved it, but she doubted her parents would see it that way. Dad is in the War Room, the big room where the Avengers meet to discuss grown up kat things she’s not supposed to be interested in, but she and her cousins like to sneak down and eavesdrop anyway._

_Uncle Clint tried to stop her dashing in after her dad, but she’s awfully quick and small. It helps that uncle Bucky is there and tells him to let her go. That is why Bucky is her favorite, and why she feels sort of guilty for making Jaime bleed. Even if he deserved it._

_Tony hears her coming, turns from his conversation with aunt Natasha and opens his arms like they’d choreographed it. She jumps into them and he wraps her up tight. She locks her long legs around him after a bit of fumbling around the girth of his stomach and buries her nose against him and clings, dragging his scent into her nose._

_‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ he murmurs lowly against her ear, rubbing her back with one big warm hand._

_‘I’m never taking a mate! Jaime said that I have to cause you’re gonna die. He’s a stupid liar… so I bit him real hard.’_

_She peeks out around her father’s shoulder, guilty eyes finding Bucky who looks exasperated, and she can tell he’s talking to Jaime already over their bond. He confirms it a moment later when he looks at her father and says, ‘just a scrape. Says it was his fault and he volunteers if you’re looking for someone to punish.’_

_Bucky sounds serious but he’s like aunt Natasha. His smile is in his eyes. Her dad is different. When he smiles – when he really smiles – it changes his whole face, takes it over, makes the whole room brighter. He’s not smiling at her now._

_Nyota shrinks and buries her head back down, clinging all the tighter._

_“First off, we have a rule about biting and you know that. Secondly, I’m sure Jamie only meant to say that if something happens to me, you finding a consort and leading the Pride is the logical next step.” Dad says, like the logic is supposed to be comforting. She knows their Pride is young. Knows that they are vulnerable to attack and that It’s not good that no other Queens have been born yet. It’s all her cousins in Wakanda talk about. All Jaime talks about. He acts so stupid – so grown up and responsible – even though he’s just ten and what does he know?!_

_All he does is yak yak yak about how he’s going to lead the Avengers like his dad someday and how she needs to grow up and find a big strong tom to protect her and have babies because it’s her job. He’s just mad because she beat him that one time at sparring practice and she’s gonna lead the Avengers one day and leave him in her dust. (See if she doesn’t!)_

_She still knows. Still hears._

_The pride is growing, but no queens have been born besides her and they need Queen babies if the Pride is going to survive. Everyone knows that Queens are the most likely to have more Queens. Natures way of providing a line of succession to keep bloody territory fights to a minimum while providing just enough competition to prevent over population uncle Bruce says.  So their hope really is with the two Queens they have to provide heirs._

_Uncle Bucky can’t have kits so that just leaves her father, who had her and then Teddy.  Her brother Teddy’s a stupid tom like Jaime and agrees with whatever the fathead says. They’re all hoping the new baby is a Queen._

_Nyota just wants it to be another girl like her because she is drowning in stupid boys._

_She squeezes her eyes shut and yowls._

_“I don’t want to be Queen!” Not if it meant her dad had to die and she had to have babies. “You can’t make me.”_

_“Hey, come on Princess, look at me.” he taps her cheek and she opens her eyes, if only to glare at him. He smiles at her in return. “Nobody can make you do anything. Well besides me and your Papa, cause that’s how these things go until you’re not teething on my furniture anymore. But mating, leading this Pride, all of that, you’ll have a choice. I’ll always give you a choice.”_

_He’s using his serious voice. His Queen voice. The one that hums in her blood and settles in her bones like it’s part of her and she blinks up at him, breathing steadying._

_“You promise?”_

_He presses his mouth to her cheek, soft whiskers tickling as he kisses he nuzzles against her and the tension melts out of her. Everything is soft and warm and perfect wrapped up in his arms. She never doubts it for a moment, when he promises that she'll get to choose how to live her own life._

Grimacing, Nyota flipped up the face mask of the protective headgear she wore and wiped the sweat from her brow. Alright so life had cheated her a bit. Dad couldn’t keep a promise shitty fate took out of his hands, yeah yeah, but screw that. He _had_ promised, so it just looked like she’d have to drag his sorry ass back from the metaphorical grave and make sure that this time around he stood by his god damn word!

She looked over at Amory, who was still watching and waiting for her permission, and flashed him a grin.

“Don't worry so much Banner. I got this. How about Princess Nichols?”

“That’s full on nerd and one hundred percent perfect. Tony will have kittens when he puts it together.” Riri crowed in response.

“Gross.” Teddy mumbled and she heard Riri snicker over the com.

Amory nodded, a relieved smile curling his mouth he went back to his work, fingers flying through blue dots and binary codes with renewed confidence.

Nyota re-lowered her faceplate and powered up her welding torch. It felt right in her hand.

She’d never wanted to be Queen so early. Never like this. But lucky for them she’d learned from the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Character list.  
> Nyota (Age 17) and T'Cael (Age 10) Stark  
> Jaime Barnes (Age 20)  
> Anya (Age 12)  
> Riri Wilson (Age 15)  
> Amory (Age 15) and Matai (Age 11) Banner  
> Theodore "Teddy" Rogers (Age 13)  
> Kate (Age 13) and Philip (Age 8)  
> William "Billy" and Thomas "Tommy" (age13).


End file.
